~ Musings of a Med School Spouse

On Monday, most of our friends find out if they matched, and on Friday they find out where!

Why the delay? In between, anyone who didn’t match can reapply to any residencies that have openings.

The Husband’s mentor is the dean in charge of helping those students through the very stressful week, so I made some tasty sustenance to sustain his energy, and as a thank you for all the help and guidance he’s given The Husband the past few years.

We are moving to Ohio. It’s starting to get more real. The Husband is alternately overwhelmed by feelings of excitement and incompetence.

I’m not sure how I feel about Ohio. Or Dayton. The other two Air Force options, Las Vegas or San Antonio, both had so much more vivacity in my mind. Vegas had the gorgeous scenery, close to some family, and someplace that looked fun for a few years. Texas was, to this liberal Yankee, well, Texas, but there was some character. Ohio is so much of a blank slate. It was never even on the radar. Nothing I can say about the area, except, huh. Ohio. No preconceived notions, except maybe boringness? Boringness because I have no idea what is there? The other two probably got a boost in familiarity because they were the locations of The Husband’s away rotations.

I have hope though because everyone I’ve talked to that’s been to Dayton gets really excited about it. So there’s that.

Other thoughts about the AF match: They say they consider MDs and DOs equals, but in my anecdotal evidence (RL friends and FB military med spouse group) all the MD M4s got categorical matches (either AF or sent to civilian match) and all the DO OMS4s were assigned PGY-1 (intern year).

Also, a lot of people don’t seem to realize that they also have to apply to civilian residencies AND PGY-1 years. I saw lots of sturm und drang when people didn’t get a categorical military residency and had applied to neither civilian residencies nor intern years. People, it’s in all the emails! Don’t be daft! The AF even gives you money to apply civilian!

Well, at 12:01 a.m. tomorrow (or in approximately 3 hours) we find out if/where we matched. The Husband is hoping for Emergency Medicine, and put down a Surgery PGY-1 as his backup. He doesn’t mind so much about military vs. civilian as long as he matches EM. But he would prefer military so he doesn’t have to go through the anxiety again waiting for civilian Match Day in March. I agree with him on this.

I made this flow chart to try to explain the possible outcomes. It’s not perfect (Once you do Flight Surgery you don’t do another PGY-1 year, you either match to a residency or continue in FS), but it’s confusing to explain because there are so many possibilities that depend on so many other possibilities.